Belief in life
Tassis Papaioannou has a protean love for Greece and the Greek landscape that wells up from stories, reading, discussions and dreams. He feels a sentimental attraction to Athens with its vigor, fragmented history and unfortunate choices. His belief in life itself is shaped by pages of poetry and drawings on rough paper. «To talk about architecture,» he says, «you must first talk about life.» You must understand it deep within you. With sensitivities that are firmly grounded in absolute realism, Papaioannou is above all an architect who reflects, an architect who has earned the right to public discourse through the simple process of being an architect. He builds houses and teaches students, activities that allow him to go off on his own to paint an imaginary house or fill a diary with notes, if only in mind. Ideas that take off, and action that leaves a trace.
